Keep Still

“Keep still!”  I bet I could have made my mom and dad millionaires if they had just a nickel for every time they had to say that to me when I was a kid!  I’ve always been a high energy person and to keep still was one of the hardest things I ever had to do – when the doctor was giving me my booster shots, to sitting in church, I just had (have?) an issue with sitting still. 

Even a couple of months ago when my doctor was reading my latest lab results and commented on my low iron levels, she said that it would be nice to get them up to “high normal.”  I told her that it would be a miracle – I’m genetically prone to low iron – and if I did get into the high normal level, watch out!  We both nodded and laughed. 

But it was no laughing matter when Hebrews stood at the edge of the Red Sea.  They had just left slavery in Egypt, and they were laden with all the goodies that their former slave-owners could give them – gold and food, clothing, and household goods…after all, God had just defeated them in a series of plagues that would have any person begging for them to just leave!

So there they were – just moments before filled with the glory of God and how God’s goodness had brought them into freedom…

…and then – and then they looked back and saw that Pharaoh was not going to let them go easily – even after blood, frogs, gnats and wild animals, livestock disease and boils, hail, locusts, darkness and death. 

They look back and see the cloud of dust and start to count the chariots – 10, 50, 100, 600! 

Somehow, death by slavery in Egypt seemed far better than death by charioteers as they stood at the water’s edge. 

They cried out to God. 

They called out to Moses.

And Moses said, “The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”

Keep still.  Have you ever tried to keep still when you feel your back is against the wall? 

It’s hard, isn’t it? 

God had a plan.  Moses was the instrument.  He raised his arms and dry land appeared and the Hebrews walked through the Red Sea with water on the left, and water on the right. 

As they reached the other side, God’s plan for saving the Hebrews included giving the Egyptians a Red Sea bath. 

Keep still.  It is in the stillness of sleep that Joseph from our Gospel text for today was given the plan.  He, Mary and Jesus would enter Egypt as refugees and stay there safely until Herod was no longer a threat to them.  Equipped with the riches of the Magi – the gold, frankincense and myrrh - they entered the nation that their forbears had exited to be protected and saved.  I thought a lot about the impact being a refugee in Egypt must have had on Jesus as he grew up.

The irony isn’t lost on me – from Egypt into Egypt.  Refugees into the land of the promise and now refugees back into the land of slavery. 

It begs the question, did Jesus come to save the world?  Does that salvation include those we think of as enemies? 

Keep still. 

As I stand under the cross of Jesus week in and week out preaching to you and hoping you catch a glimpse of the vast love of God, it makes me still in the depths of my soul. 

God’s love is the constant – the rock on which I place my eternal trust.  Even when I stand at the water’s edge and wonder if God knows – or cares – where I am, how I am in this moment.

If I can keep still and look to Jesus, just as those Hebrews looked to Moses, I know God has a plan that is far beyond my wildest imagination. 

Keep still.

Keep still.  Keep silent?  Now that’s a different question. 

As Christians in this time and place, with issues that are complicated and complex all over the news, issues that are political, economic, humanitarian, ecological, dealing with refugees, and nominees, we are called to speak out…and speak up.  We who are mainline Protestant have a duty to God and country that brings to the table a viewpoint of Jesus’ actions in the Bible. 

What did Jesus do?  Jesus treated all people as people – regardless of gender, culture, religious belief, or social status.

How did Jesus act?  Jesus acted with compassion and clarity, bringing cure, and care, meeting needs of ALL he encountered.

What did Jesus say to those in authority?  Jesus challenged those in authority to do justice for every person – not just those of their tribe/class/clan.

Rabbi Edwin Friedman, in his book A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, described a chronically anxious society with five characteristics:

Those five characteristics are:    1. Reactivity: the vicious cycle of intense reactions of each member to events and to one another.    2. Herding: a process through which the forces for togetherness triumph over the forces for individuality and move everyone to adapt to the least mature members.    3. Blame displacement: an emotional state in which family members focus on forces that have victimized them rather than taking responsibility for their own being and destiny.    4. A quick-fix mentality: a low threshold for pain that constantly seeks symptom relief rather than fundamental change.    5. Lack of well-differentiated leadership: a failure of nerve that both stems from and contributes to the first four.

What to do when, I believe, this defines our society these days?  How do I continue to function when it feels so hopeless and I feel so helpless?

Keep still. 

Keep still and stand at the edge of the water and know that the LORD is with us.  We experience the Lord’s real presence in bread broken and wine poured; in prayers prayed; and in songs sung. 

Keep still and wade in the waters baptism and let that identity become my source of strength and hope – uniting us people from all walks of life, all cultures and societies as we work, each in our own way with our brother, Jesus, to bring about justice for all. 

Keep still and listen for what God is telling you to do this week.  [pause]  Amen